Grounds

Emulsion grounds typically consist of an emulsifying adhesive, such as animal collagen glue and vegetable oil with chalk and lead white. There are many formulas for emulsion grounds, also called "half-chalk grounds," but the one herein we've tried and found that it works quite well if you follow the instructions carefully. This formula and its preparation is based on the Full Oil Ground described in Egg Tempera Painting, Tempera Underpainting, Oil Emulsion Painting....

Gesso is the Italian word for gypsum but has come to mean the ground or primer for wooden painting panels. This gel-like mass, having the consistency of cream when warm, consists of chalk or gypsum and animal collagen glue in a solution with water. This article provides recipes for sizes and grounds and step-by-step instructions on preparing and applying gesso or glue grounds to wood panels...

A comparison of grounds for egg tempera by artist, Koo Schadler. She compares seven different grounds based on six criteria she developed for egg tempera painting. Read this article to see how they measure up...

Tempera is a method of painting with pigments dispersed in a binder that is miscible with water such as egg yolk, casein, gum, or hide glue. This article examines the type of supports used today for tempera and the best practice of preparing them for tempera paint using a new ground, Tempera Ground, made by Natural Pigments...

Oil paint darkens and becomes increasingly translucent as it ages. These changes may cause visible disfigurement of paintings, and although the phenomenon has been extensively studied, the causes are not definitely known at present. This article presents evidence that demonstrates how improper technique and materials in the ground layer can lead to ruined paintings...

Learning from artists' manuscripts, a contemporary artist adapts a 15th-century recipe for preparing grounds for oil painting on wood panels. In her book, The Art of Arts, Anita Albus discusses materials and practices of oil and tempera painting that have either been lost or fallen into disuse. Albus makes a poignant observation that ever since the industrial revolution, it has been an industry that dictates what materials are available to artists. Gesso production falls into this category alongside the preparation of paints and mediums. Artists have succumbed to the materials handed to us. She reminds us that before industrialization and typical of the European artist's guilds of the 15th and 16th centuries, it was largely the artists who prepared their own formulas and concoctions in painting...

Welcome to Natural Pigments' Glossary of common and not so common Paint and Art Terms. Here we hope to give you a brief definition of various art terms which might be unfamiliar. If you have any questions, comments, or ideas, please contact us...

This tutorial describes how to prepare and apply a base for gilding and how to apply the gold leaf and burnish the gold. This tutorial includes working with dry powder or cone bole, such as Selhamin Poliment, or wet paste bole, such as Charbonnel Gilder's Clay Base...

Since the 1970s, it has become difficult to buy lead white in linseed oil to prime canvases and panels. As a result, artists who wish to use oil priming for their supports usually must substitute other materials for the lead white in linseed oil. Read this article on preparing canvas and wood panels with lead white oil primer. Some manufacturers of artists' materials still sell lead white oil paint in cans and large-capacity tubes. It should be noted, however, that most, if not all, of these lead white artists' oil colors are ground in safflower oil or poppy seed oil and not in linseed oil...

Part one on preparing wood panels for painting with the application of chalk grounds and fifth in our technical series on painting icons, this article discusses the history and materials used in the preparation of wood panels for tempera painting—size, pavoloka, and gesso — since the earliest period of Christian art until today. While the series specifically applies to making icon boards and preparing them for painting egg tempera icons, it has application to preparing wood panels for painting in any medium on chalk grounds...

The technique followed by painters in medieval Western Europe to prepare and paint tempera panels and that used by painters in Russia of the same period are closely allied. However, there are some differences in the process, from the preparation of the panel to the final varnish. These differences are interesting to note and can provide some insight into the technique and process used by the earliest Byzantine artists to make panel paintings...

Gold fascinated medieval society. The medieval love of gold is exemplified during the Byzantine period by resplendent domes, mosaics, icons, and architecture. Illuminated manuscripts echoed these achievements in miniature. Gold became an intrinsic element of the illuminated page...